


Do You Wanna Build a Voltron?

by phoenixyfriend



Series: Let It the Quiznak Go [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, Frozen (2013) References, Gen, Guess that means I'll have to write a sequel, Ice Powers, It was supposed to be Lance building a castle while singing a Disney song, It wasn't supposed to be angst, Light Angst, Literally the only reason I wrote this was so Lance could have a Let it Go moment, One Shot, Quintessence, and I didn't even give him a proper one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 05:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10507350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Lance woke up to a room full of frost, and proceeded to panic. Just a little. Just a smidgen. Just enough to refuse to leave his room until Hunk promised to go get Coran so there was a competent adult helping them figure out this mess.According to Blue, humans were very fragile, and needed all the help they could get. Blue could provide a lot of help, andthiswas a perfect solution, in her eyes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in my tags, the ONLY reason I wrote this was Let It Go. That's it. The Frozen references were the only thing pushing me. They are at the heart of this thing, which somehow turned into angst in places without my permission AGAIN.
> 
> Lotor is mentioned, by the way, if barely. I'll just say here that, while I am aware of what the several previous versions of Lotor and Sincline have been like (including the Lighter and Softer comics version), I'm currently going with one of the fanon interpretations: he hates his dad and is just going through the motions because it's what he's been taught all his life... and also because Haggar is telling him to. And she's scary as fuck. He'd rather be doing something else, honestly, but if he's going to do this job, then he's going to succeed out of spite for his father's incompetent handling of Volt-- that is a very pretty paladin. Um. Hello?

It was a fluke.

That was how Lance read into it, at first. Just… a fluke. No big deal. Nothing to worry his teammates about. Everyone had enough on their plates already; he could handle this on his own.

Besides! It was all good things anyway, right? Just signs of Blue being friendly. Just a sign of how close their bond was.

Lance didn’t need to bother anyone with the fact that he could feel the phantom sensation of a core of ice in his chest when he meditated in Blue’s cockpit.

He didn’t need to bother anyone with the fact that he wasn’t bothered by the cold or the snow or wind or hail when they visited an ice planet.

He _definitely_ didn’t need to bother anyone with the fact that he could take showers in a wider range of temperatures than he used to. That information was both private and weird.

If a mission came up where Lance’s newfound immunity to the cold could come in handy, he’d bring it up, but until then, nobody needed the distraction. _Someone_ on the science team would try to figure out how and why it was happening, and they had enough to do. Searching for Shiro, for the Holts, for information on what the Galra Empire was up to? That all took precedence over the fact that Lance could no longer get brain freeze.

It was just… Blue was nice. Blue was nice and friendly and _liked_ him, and he liked her right back, and after the scare with Shiro, all the lions were acting a little nervous about their paladins. Blue was just giving his body a bit of a boost, making sure he was hardier than people expected so that he didn’t get taken away somehow. The other lions were probably doing something similar for _their_ paladins too, right?

Blue was just giving him an extra fighting chance.

Then things went a step further.

o.o.o.o.o

Lance woke up to his alarm clock going off near his head, a sign that nothing had gone wrong in the night and that there were no pressing matters to attend to. He could get up and get ready at his own speed, so long as he was down in time to grab breakfast and eat before training started. He yawned as he reached out with one hand to press down on the snooze button, planning on getting a bit more sleep.

His first clue was that his pillow felt grainy and sharp against his skin as he moved.

His second clue was that his nightstand, when he groped blindly across its surface, felt even worse.

His third clue was that the button on his alarm clock felt like it was scraping against something as he pushed it down.

Lance pulled his arm back in under the covers and snuggled in, enjoying the chance to sleep in a little further. Unfortunately, his brain had latched onto the details that _did not fit_ , and while his instincts weren’t telling him he was in immediate danger, the unease grew enough to push him to wakefulness.

He opened his eyes and sucked in a breath.

His room was covered in frost.

Lance took a slow, shallow breath, and… clapped a hand over his mouth to smother the scream that hadn’t quite managed to work its way out of his throat yet.

Okay.

Okay, so this was.

Okay.

Right.

He could deal with this like a real adult. Like he knew what he was doing. Like a _paladin_.

“I am so screwed,” he whispered as he finally dropped his hand. He threw off his blankets and stood carefully, turning on the spot to assess the damage. Luckily, nothing in the room was the sort of thing that could be hurt by a little cold or water. Altean fabrics and materials weren’t going to be damaged, and he hadn’t borrowed Pidge’s headphones last night.

 _Did I do this?_ Lance asked himself, dragging a hand across the walls. Maybe the castle had just made it to a weird planet that had damaged the ambient temperature controls or whatever, and the entire castle was like this.

He doubted it, but…

Lance carefully padded over to the door, hoping that no one was outside. The keypad was just as icy as the rest of the room, but he managed to get the film of frozen water off with a little rubbing with his bathrobe sleeve.

When he opened the door, it was to an utterly normal hallway. Yellow lights, empty, and utterly lacking in frost.

Lance stuck a hand out, just to check. The air outside of his room was _significantly_ warmer than the air inside, and while he didn’t really get uncomfortable in the cold anymore, it was still noticeable.

He pulled his hand back in and closed the door before anyone could notice. He trudged back to his bed and sat heavily, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands, and his elbows on his knees.

Okay, so. Either something in the castle had gone wrong and caused an isolated temperature drop in Lance’s room, or Lance himself had done something.

…it was always possible that someone had _deliberately_ made the temperature go down in his room, but ‘there is now ice’ was generally not a safe room temperature for humans, and Allura knew what the safe range was by now, on the average, and didn’t know about Lance’s recent weirdness from Blue. She wouldn’t risk his health just to make him get up from bed earlier, and Pidge wouldn’t do it for a prank or something either.

Either malfunction or Lance.

“No pressure,” Lance muttered to himself, holding one hand up in front of himself and focusing on the skin of his palm. Maybe if he just… concentrated really hard? Would there be light? Or snow? Or… or maybe all the moisture in the air had already disappeared into the existing frost and there wasn’t any left for Lance to test the possible superpowers.

Okay. New plan, then.

Lance scooted back to the middle of the bed and pulled his legs up, getting into position for meditation. He rested his hands on his knees and closed his eyes, focusing. Just like Shiro taught them…

_Blue?_

A mental _mrrr_ -ing noise greeted him.

_Do you know what’s going on here? Is it just the castle glitching out or… did I… did you…_

Blue pushed a feeling of smug pride at him.

_Blue!_

There was a sensation of laughter.

_Blue, did you give me ice powers like yours?_

An acknowledgement.

 _…warn a guy, will you? I have no idea how to use these._ Or _control them._

Trust. Optimism. He’d learn. He’d figure it out. Blue knew he would.

Lance opened his eyes. Great. Okay. This was just fucking… he would work with this. He _would._

He held a hand out in front of his face and wondered, for a moment, if he just had to… play with the feeling like ice in his chest that Blue gave him when he meditated. Move it up and out through his hand. Maybe just… make like Elsa. Flurries everywhere.

He held his breath as he actually did see a bright blue glow traveling up his arm. If this power came from his lion, then it was probably quintessence-based, and Allura always glowed when _she_ used her quintessence powers, so… that made sense.

“Just a flurry,” Lance whispered as he pushed that feeling of friendly ice up to his palm. He managed to find a way to release it.

A bolt of ice shot out of his hand and tore a hole in the ceiling. The ice was four inches across and looked much deadlier than an icicle, even though it hung from his ceiling like one.

Lance stared at it for a moment, and gulped. “Okay. Let’s try that again.”

Blue laughed.

o.o.o.o.o

“Lance?” Hunk knocked on the door. “Lance, are you okay in there? You weren’t at breakfast.”

Hunk shivered a little, wishing he had a jacket. Was it colder in this part of the hallway, or was it just him? He didn’t get cold easily, but maybe he was getting sick.

“Hunk?”

“Lance!” Hunk ignored the temperature and went to try to open the door. “Listen, I’m coming in an—”

“No!” Lance barked, startling Hunk away from the door.

There was a pregnant silence, and Hunk slowly went back to standing upright instead of comically leaning back.

“…So…”

“Something weird is going on, and coming in might not be safe. Yet. Um. Get Coran maybe?”

“What kind of weird?”

“Like… my lion maybe gave me superpowers? And I don’t know how to control them?”

“… _bro_.”

“Bro, I know.”

“What kind of—”

“It’s kind of a ‘Conceal, Don’t Feel’ situation in here right now,” Lance admitted.

“…oh my god, is _that_ why the hallway is so cold?” Hunk realized.

“Uh, probably?”

“Are you going to keep us all out, or is this just for this morning?” Hunk rubbed his hands up and down his arms.

“Don’t know yet.” Lance sounded nervous. “I’m not… I don’t know how to control it. The stuff I tried so far is kind of tearing holes in the walls when I try to do anything with it? And when I _don’t_ try anything, it’s kind of just freezing the whole room enough for there to be ice everywhere, so that’s probably a hypothermia risk, right?”

Hunk thought that over for a moment. “I’m gonna go get Coran.”

“I’ll be right here when you get back.” Lance laughed, but it wasn’t a very happy noise.

Hunk hurried off.

o.o.o.o.o

“Lance is a Disney Princess!”

“What.”

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best opening. Hunk was a little frazzled and his brain was already on Disney stuff since Lance had made the reference and was hiding in his room. He felt that was a good excuse.

“Okay, wait, no. Sorry,” Hunk backtracked, trying to ignore the weird looks he was getting from Pidge and Keith, and the confused ones from Allura and Coran. “He, uh…”

“Lance is… royalty?” Allura hazarded, seeming like she didn’t believe it herself.

“No. It was a reference, sorry.” Hunk wrung his hands together. “The Blue Lion gave Lance superpowers, but he has no idea how to use them and is scared of hurting us, so he’s holed up in his room. I came to get Coran so we could figure this all out.”

“Bullshit,” Pidge said, though the disbelief in her voice was tinged with something that was less ‘my friends are lying’ and more ‘how did my life get weirder?’

“What’s the ambient temperature in Lance’s room?” Hunk asked, rather than arguing directly.

Pidge narrowed her eyes, then spun to her computer and typed in a few commands. She stared at the numbers and then sat back, a forced calm settling over her. “Hunk. Why is it below freezing in Lance’s room?”

“Oh my god,” Keith whispered, like this was somehow personally offending him.

“Like I said: Blue gave Lance superpowers and he can’t control them yet.” Hunk shrugged, still wringing his hands. “Can we head up there now? I want to grab some food for Lance since he missed breakfast.”

“I suppose we should all go,” Allura said, getting to her feet. “You said he asked for Coran specifically?”

Hunk shrugged. “Coran knows everything.”

Coran shook his head. “As far as I know, the lions have never conferred new powers to their paladins before.”

“Maybe they decided we need all the help we can get,” Pidge suggested. “But Blue was the only one willing to try.”

“Humans seem pretty average compared to most species. No real natural advantages other than stuff that other sentient and sapient species have, too.” Hunk said, leading the way out and towards the kitchen. “Like, no natural quintessence abilities, or extreme physical attributes, or the tech levels that most species have.”

“Shiro still managed to be Champion,” Keith pointed out, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “That’s not something you get just by being average.”

Hunk shrugged, a little uncomfortable as he gathered some leftovers from breakfast to bring to Lance’s room. “I guess, but what would you even attribute that to? Like, as a species-wide thing that other species don’t have?”

Keith didn’t seem to have an answer.

Most of the way back to the paladin quarters passed with slightly more inane chatter. They could all feel it, though, the way the temperature plummeted as they entered the hallway. Hunk’s heart sank as he noticed a hole in the wall next to Lance’s door and a thin film of ice seeming to crawl out of it.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Pidge whispered, and then dashed forward to hammer on Lance’s door. “Lance! Lance! What the fuck, dude, you actually have superpowers!”

“Pidge?” Lance’s voice wasn’t quite as muddled as it usually would have been through the wall, and Hunk glanced up at the hole, just a few inches across. Yeah, there was probably a reason for that. “What are you—”

“Hunk told us that you’re basically Elsa now,” Pidge babbled, bouncing on her toes. “We all came to see if it was true, and also I want to know _how_ and stuff, and Hunk brought food since you missed breakfast.”

“Hunk is absolutely right, especially about the food,” Lance said immediately. Then, as though suddenly remembering, he said, “Are you wearing a jacket?”

“What?”

“Pidge, I don’t know how cold it’s going to get out there when I open the door. It’s definitely below freezing in here. I don’t feel it, but that’s because of Blue. Are you guys wearing jackets? Are you bundled up? Please tell me you’re bundled up. Get blankets or something.”

“Lance,” Hunk sighed. “We’ll be fine.”

“Bundle up, bitch,” Lance retorted, with the air of someone quoting something. “No, but seriously. I have no idea how to control this. Put something more on.”

“Lance, please just open the door.”

“Not until you bundle up!”

Hunk gave Coran and Allura a helpless look.

“Altean fabrics trap heat rather efficiently, and self-adjust to the environment to aid in thermal regulation,” Coran said. “We’ll be fine.”

“Ugh, fine. Can you hold this, then? I guess I can dig up the paladin bathrobe or something.”

Coran took the plate of leftovers as Hunk hurried off to done the bathrobe, Pidge and Keith going to their own rooms to do the same.

o.o.o.o.o

Coran exchanged a look with Allura.

“This has truly never happened before, has it?” She asked.

Coran shook his head. “If it has, I was never told.”

“Perhaps Lance will have more answers.”

“You do realize I can hear you, right?” Lance said, voice much louder and clearer.

A blue eye peered at them from the hole next to the wall.

Allura tilted her head a little. “Would you like to explain the hole?”

“I was trying to figure out if I could make flurries. Something simple and harmless, to get a feel for what I could actually do, and like… what it felt like, I guess? So that I don’t freeze over my room by accident again.”

“A hole in the wall does not suggest something harmless, Lance.”

“Yeah, well, my control is apparently nonexistent, so… I managed to go from four-inch holes to two-inch holes before I gave up and decided to just wait until I could experiment in the training room. I don’t like having holes in my walls.”

“You’re going to help with patching those up yourself, Lance,” Coran informed him.

“Yeah, I figured.”

The other paladins made it back, clothed in the admittedly very warm bathrobes that they’d been given, though Pidge and Keith did not look happy to be in them.

“Okay, _now_ can you open the door?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, just… just stand back a bit? It’s probably super cold in here to you guys, and I’m still randomly giving off snow blasts with random gestures, so I don’t want you to end up like the wall.”

Coran was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one to look over at the hole in question.

“Yeah, okay. Just… just open up, Lance.” Hunk shifted from foot to foot, looking nervous.

The door slid open with a whoosh, and Coran’s first thought was _oh thank quiznak, he looks okay._

His second thought was _that is a very large amount of ice._

His third thought was _that is VERY COLD._

The air that came blasting out of Lance’s room as he opened the door was absolutely freezing, far past the point that Coran had expected. What could be seen of the room behind him was covered in hoarfrost, on every visible surface save for some of the fabric on his bed where he’d presumably slept and sat, and some footprints on the floor.

But Lance himself, while also covered in frost on his clothing, and with rime on the ends of his hair, seemed fine. There were no signs of frostbite, not even early warnings like yellowed fingers from lack of bloodflow.  He seemed perfectly healthy, if smiling unsteadily like he was only doboshes from a panic attack.

“So… do you want to build a snow man?” Pidge asked, startling a laugh out of Lance. It was a shaky laugh, true, and Coran didn’t quite understand why Pidge’s words had caused it, but it was something.

“It doesn’t have to be a snowman,” Hunk said in a tone Coran had heard the humans refer to as sing-song.

“If Pidge is Ana, and I’m Elsa, then what does that make you?” Lance said.

“Kristoff? Keith can be Hans.”

“Keith isn’t charming enough to be Hans,” Pidge argued. “He can be Sven.”

“Wait, no, I want to be Sven,” Hunk protested. “Keith can be Kristoff, he’s grumpy enough.”

“But then who’s Hans?” Pidge asked.

“…Lotor,” Keith suggested after a long moment.

Lance doubled over, laughing.

“Ew, he’s weird,” Pidge said, making a face. “And he’s more interested in Lance than in me.”

“Still tries to seduce one of the good guys for questionable reasons,” Keith said. “Even if we don’t know what his reasons are yet. Or, well, anything about him other than that he likes to flirt with Lance and may or may not hate his dad almost as much as we do for no discernible reason.”

“Honestly, I can live with that,” Lance said. The tenseness in his shoulders was leaving. Good. “Better than him hating us, right? This way we might actually be able to take advantage of his interest somehow.”

“Back to Frozen parallels!” Pidge interrupted.

“Coran could be the Duke of Weselton?” Hunk suggested. “He’s got the mustache.”

“Counterpoint: Olaf,” Pidge said, like it settled the argument. Apparently, it did, because the paladins all nodded like this made sense. Coran wondered who Olaf was.

“What does that make Allura, then? She’s the only actual royalty on board,” Lance asked.

“Marshmallow,” Keith said immediately. “Because she can kick all our asses, and she’s the one with the crown at the end of the day.”

“Oh my god, that’s right, the _stinger_.” Lance started laughing again.

Pidge leaned over towards Allura and beckoned her closer. “At the end of the movie, Marshmallow finds the crown that Elsa threw away during her power ballad,” She whispered conspiratorially.

Coran felt that it was very obvious that Allura wasn’t even _attempting_ to disguise her confusion. “I don’t understand.”

Pidge patted her on the shoulder, nodding solemnly. “We can have a movie night later. The movie’s older than any of us, but it’s a fun one.”

“I have complaints about the—”

“We know, Lance,” Hunk said, cutting him off. “Pidge and I have heard this before. We know you have issues with the animation models and the racism, but the movie’s almost sixty years old. Let it go.”

A grin started spreading across Lance’s face.

“Hunk, _why?”_ Pidge buried her face in her hands. “Now he’s going to start singing.”

“The moon glows white on th—”

“No.” Keith turned and lightly clapped a hand over Lance’s mouth. It was clearly meant in a joking manner, but Lance flailed wildly to get Keith off, scrambling back into his room.

“What the hell, Keith? Are you _insane?”_

“Wh—”

“What if you got frostbite, asshole?” Lance demanded. “I have no idea if my skin is even a normal temperature anymore, you can’t just—”

“It was just a second!”

“Still!”

Keith frowned. “Your face felt normal. I mean, a little cold, but not unnaturally.”

Coran decided to take over at that point. “Lance, if I may? I’m rather hardier than humans, and I’d like to see if there are any external signs of the… changes, other than the obvious.”

Lance took a step back, hugging his elbows. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”

“We could scan you in a healing pod if that would make you more comfortable,” Coran suggested as gently as he could.

Lance nodded rapidly. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“But you hate the healing pods,” Pidge said.

“Yeah, but if I hurt a healing pod, we can fix that.” Lance shrugged. “There’s less danger.”

 “You do realize that worrying that much might just make it harder to control, right? Like, if we assume that your magic is anything like movie magic…” Pidge trailed off suggestively.

“Okay, but Elsa had most of her life to practice her control. I’ve had like… three hours. Less, probably.” Lance widened his eyes imploringly. “That’s a big difference.”

“Fair point,” Pidge sighed. “Hey, Hunk, carry me.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m lazy.”

“That’s a terrible reason.”

“Nah.”

Hunk ended up carrying Pidge.

As they walked down towards the med bay, Coran noted that Lance kept a careful distance between himself and everyone else. Every time someone moved closer, he’d shift away.

Hopefully, that would be temporary. The Blue Lion wouldn’t have given her paladin abilities that would have rendered him unable to stomach the idea of being near his loved ones, surely.

“Right, then! In you go!” Coran opened the pod and gestured inside. “We’ll have you scanned in a tick!”

“Thanks, Coran,” Lance said as he stepped in, shedding his bathrobe until he was left in only curiously dry bedclothes. “I don’t need the pod suit, do I?”

“I think we can go ahead and skip it this time,” Coran allowed. “Hop on in!”

Lance climbed in, though slowly, hesitation evident in his movements. He wasn’t as hesitant as Allura would have been, or even Coran himself, but bad experiences with healing pods tended to leave their marks.

A rogue AI locking Lance into one in an attempt to kill him wasn’t going to leave as much of a mark as ten thousand years in stasis was, but it was still going to be something.

The pod closed on Lance, and hissed quietly as it prepared him. He’d only be in for a dobosh or so, but the pods did have their own protocol.

Coran wasn’t surprised by the results.

“So, doc, what’s the verdict?” Lance asked as he stumbled out. Allura moved to help, quietly reprimanding Lance when he tried to push her away.

“I’m a little sturdier than you humans, Lance. I think I can handle a little cold.”

“Your stable internal temperature is hovering somewhat lower than before, though not by much. The equivalent in human terms would be… Pidge? I’m afraid I don’t remember the conversion rates.”

Pidge ran over and took a look at the scans, then nodded sharply. “You’re about five degrees Fahrenheit cooler than before.”

“Aw, you _do_ think I’m cool.”

“Shove off, Lance,” Pidge said, rolling her eyes.

“Also, could you give me that in Celsius? I think it’s only two and a half degrees that way, but…” Lance shrugged as he pulled his bathrobe back on. “Numbers aren’t really my strong point.”

“About two point two repeating, you metric heathen.”

“Awesome. That’s… not even all that weird. I can live with that. Is that just my core temperature, or all around?”

“Your hands do appear to be colder than the rest of your body,” Coran said. He skimmed through the information. “By quite a bit more, actually. I’d worry for the safety of your little human fingers if the pods weren’t reading it as your new normal.”

“Maybe I can learn to control it?” Lance suggested, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I mean, this is probably going to be less ‘my comfortable temperature range has shifted down this many degrees’ and more like… ‘my comfortable temperature range has expanded in a downwards direction.’”

“You can’t know that, Lance.” Pidge fiddled with her glasses. Nervous habit, that, and one that Coran had seen in plenty of optometric aid-wearing aliens before. “I mean, I’d hope so, but you’re the one that keeps reminding us that you don’t know how to use these powers.”

“Yeah, but… all the stuff before this was just adding more to the range I could withstand, not _moving_ it.” Lance frowned at the ground, thinking it over.

“What do you mean, _stuff before this?”_ Allura demanded. “Lance, what have you been hiding?”

“Nothing!” Lance threw up his hands into the air beside his head in a position that the humans tended to take when they were declaring themselves innocent or acknowledging an authority immediately after breaking a rule. Lance quickly noticed this, and stuffed his hands back into his robe’s pockets. “I mean, _yes,_ I technically wasn’t telling you something, but that was because I didn’t think it was a big deal, and the team already had enough to deal with.”

Allura crossed her arms. “What, Lance? What did you think wasn’t a big deal?”

Lance stared uncomfortably at the ground to his side. “I just… Blue thought I was too vulnerable. And I didn’t notice at first, but I didn’t get cold anymore? Like, if I was in the showers, I could shower at my usual temperatures, but I could also turn the temperature down as low as it went and it wouldn’t bother me? Which is a big deal, because I used to use up all the hot water at home when I took showers because I couldn’t stand the cold. And sometimes when I was meditating on Blue, I’d feel like there was like… a core of ice in my chest. But not uncomfortable? Just there. I figured it was just me and Blue bonding more, like… I don’t know, quintessence resonance or something? Is that a thing?”

Allura’s face looked as though it was carved from stone. “Lance, you need to tell us these things.”

“I thought it was normal! And, look, it was only good things. Me and Blue were getting closer, and I was less likely to die if we went to an ice planet, and that was it! Until this morning, of course, but I really don’t think you can blame me for that one.” Lance kept glaring at the floor. “Seriously, there were more important things for you guys to focus on. Me being able to handle a bit of snow wasn’t all that big in comparison.”

Coran felt that now might have been an opportune moment to intervene, given how Allura looked to be gearing up for a fight. “Did the Blue Lion confirm that she was behind your new abilities?”

“What? Uh, yeah, I asked as soon as I realized what was going on.” Lance frowned. “She seemed pretty proud of herself, too. When I told her that I had no idea how to use them, she kind of just went ‘well, you’ll figure it out,’ and left it at that.”

“That does sound like the Blue Lion,” Coran said. Quick to trust and put her faith in her paladins, and willing to try new things that had a chance of working if she just felt it would be right. Not as deliberate as the Green Lion in her own experimentations, or as eager to trust in intuition as Red in everything, but some odd balance between the two that occasionally left them dealing with rather odd situations.

Like this.

“Well, let’s see what you can do with those abilities up in the training room!” Coran said, clapping his hands. “We’ll see if you can’t cause more damage than an angry yelmor!”

“Way to have faith in my control, Coran,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. There was a smile on his face, though, and that was worth the bit of sarcasm.

“Plenty of faith, young paladin.” Coran clapped a hand on Lance’s shoulder, ignoring the flinch. Lance would learn to trust himself again soon. “But I also want to see what happens if you learn to use those powers and _really_ let loose!”

“Honestly, that idea kind of scares me,” Lance admitted.

“And that’s why we need to try it!” Coran insisted. “We can all stay in the console area while you practice, if that would make you feel better. Plenty to protect us from the cold.”

“Great,” Pidge said, linking her hands behind her head. “It was starting to get a bit cold in the med bay anyway.”

And Coran didn’t stumble or tense or otherwise display any sign that he was taken aback by that, but he was surprised. He hadn’t even noticed the slowly dropping temperature, but a glance at the small console on the wall noted that the temperature was currently some fifteen of those ‘Fahrenheit’ degrees closer to freezing than it had been when they first entered.

Lance hissed out a slow breath. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to learn to control that.”

o.o.o.o.o

Pidge was in charge of the console when they got up there, at least a little. Coran was really running the show, and Allura had the final word, but Pidge was the one pressing all the buttons and making little adjustments. That was fine by her, at least for now.

“Do you think it would help if Lance joined in on your magic lessons?” Pidge asked as she flipped a switch, not bothering to look up at Allura even though she’d addressed her question to the older woman. “I know you’re basically self-taught using those quintessence books from the library, but if this ice stuff is based on quintessence too, then it could help.”

“I’ll consider it,” Allura said, utterly stiff.

Pidge resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Allura had a good reason to be annoyed that Lance had been keeping secrets. The chain of command existed for a reason, and Voltron was the kind of team where _bad things_ happened if there were secrets. There also would have been minimal fallout if Lance _had_ told them; despite his worries to the contrary, Lance’s problems weren’t going to make the rest of them lose sight of what was important. Pidge would have called it self-absorbed and made a joke about how the world didn’t revolve around Lance if she didn’t know what kind of self-esteem issues it was couched in.

(She’d never brought up the seventh wheel thing. She was pretty sure that Lance didn’t know she’d even overheard that conversation. But she knew, and she kept an eye out for… signs. Bad signs. Signs like she’d seen in her mom, sometimes.)

“Okay, dude,” Pidge said into the microphone, looking down at the training area. Lance looked back up at her and gave her a thumbs up. “I’m gonna bring up some targets, and I want you to show us what you were doing to make holes in the walls. They’re going to be still and stable, so they shouldn’t be too hard to hit, but it’s a new weapon, so don’t be too bothered if you miss the first few times.”

“Thanks for the _glowing_ commendation, Pidge.”

“New weapon, dude. I know the statistics.” She did not, in fact, know the statistics, but she did have common sense. People generally needed a few shots, _minimum_ , to adjust to a new weapon. “Now shoot.”

“Fine, you little taskmaster. And by the way, I was _trying_ to make _flurries_.”

“Well, _try_ to shoot the _targets_ now.”

Lance gave her the finger, but nonetheless turned to the targets. Clad only in his usual outfit, rather than risk damaging his uniform, he looked kind of silly. He stood with his feet apart and askew, ready to brace for possible recoil. He held one hand up in front of him, arm straight and palm facing out, like he was Iron Man preparing to use a repulsor on someone.

Pidge heard the usual preparatory breath, and then—

“Holy fuck!” She yelped, as a thick bolt of ice seemed to materialize in the air in front of Lance, already speeding towards the targets. It hit way off-center, though still on the target itself. Pidge gaped at the fact that there was a several-inches-thick spear of _ice_ stabbing through the Altean metal.

“ _Dude_ ,” Hunk said behind her. “That just happened.”

“…I missed,” Lance said quietly.

“New weapon, dude.”

“Wait, why wasn’t there any ice in the hole in your wall?” Keith asked before Lance could try again.

“I panicked and pulled it out because I hadn’t figured out what to tell you guys yet.” Lance shrugged. “In hindsight, you’d all know something was wrong whether the ice was still there or not, because there was a _hole_ , but, you know, panic.”

“Try again, asshole,” Pidge said into the microphone. “Would different motions help? Or is the Iron Man repulsor pose the only one you know?”

Lance immediately shifted one hand gripping his shooting hand’s wrist, and his shoulder bunched up under his ear like he was holding a pistol. He was still shooting with his palm.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, Gunderson.”

Pidge rolled her eyes.

Lance shot off bolts of ice three more times, in varying sizes as Coran asked for adjustments in energy output from Lance and new readings on the instruments from Pidge.

“What if he like… acted like he was throwing something?” Keith suggested, miming an overhand toss himself. “Like when people actually throw javelins.”

“Lance?” Pidge said into the microphone. “Did you catch that?”

“I know I’m good at shooting things, but I should remind you know that my overhand throws are _terrible_. Remember the sporse stuff? I was trying to hit Keith but I missed and hit Shiro instead.” Lance waved his hands around emphatically. “Javelin throw? Bad idea.”

“Try it anyway. For science!” Pidge was sure that her grin was audible.

The attempt was a catastrophic failure, though that may have had more to do with Lance half-assing it than anything else.

“What about other stuff?” Hunk asked. “Like, could he make a bow and arrow out of ice? Is that a thing that can happen?”

Lance shook his head. “My control is _not_ good enough for that. Maybe later.”

“Any other ideas?” Keith asked, looking at Coran and Allura for suggestions.

“Oh, I have one,” Lance said, raising a hand from where he stood in the center of training area. There was a grin on his face.

It was a grin that promised trouble. It was a grin that promised _fun_.

It was a grin that Pidge liked, because it had led to her getting a video game she loved while in space, and that everyone else was just a little scared of.

“Let’s see if this works,” Lance said, and stuck his hand straight up in the air. Then he folded down the pinky and ring finger, letting the pointer and middle finger remain pointing straight up, the thumb angled out as far as possible.

“Lance,” Pidge drawled, barely keeping her laugh under control as Hunk groaned behind her. Keith could be heard hitting his head against the glass. “Are you turning your finger guns into actual guns?”

“Ice guns, Pidge. They’re gonna be _ice guns_ ,” Lance kept his elbow locked as he lowered his hand at the target.

“Recoil,” she reminded him.

“There isn’t any!” He called up, but adjusted his elbow to have enough bend to take recoil anyway.

Deep breath.

Exhale.

Shoot.

“Perfect bullseye,” Pidge muttered. “I think we’ve found your best form. Now we just need to—”

Lance shot again.

“Hey, asshole, I was talking!”

“Keep talking, then. I can keep shooting while you’re babbling.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. Ugh. “The size of your ice projectiles is changing based on how you’re sending it out. Try one finger.”

Lance shrugged and just pointed right at the target.

It wasn’t a perfect bullseye, but the projectile was barely half an inch across this time.

“What if he just like… punched the air?” Hunk suggested. “Like, build up the power and then blast from the knuckles?”

Pidge shrugged. “Hey, if he’s up for it, then why not?”

“Lance?” Coran suddenly said. “Using up this much quintessence should be draining you. Are you sure you aren’t tired?”

Lance paused, actually gauging the situation. “I think Blue might be giving me her quintessence to practice with? She seems really happy.”

“Do the punch that Hunk said!” Pidge yelled into the microphone. “I wanna see what happens!”

What happened was a massive spray of ice needles that Lance seemed to have very little control over.

“Well, you’re never using that with allies nearby,” Pidge commented. “Okay, we got a bunch of projectile stuff done. I want to see if you can _build_.”

“Pidge, I can barely make the weapons do anythi…and Blue wants me to play along. Okay. Sure. Why not?”

“Maybe start with seeing if you can deliberately ice over the floor?” Pidge suggested, glancing at Coran. He nodded, and Pidge turned back down to the training ground. “Yeah, Coran’s giving the go-ahead.”

Lance bit his lip and then kneeled slowly to the ground, putting just the fingers of his hand to the ground. He closed his eyes, nervous again, and Pidge was sure everyone was just as focused as she was.

A blast of ice exited Lance’s palm. It wasn’t another bolt, thankfully, or Lance could have ended up stabbing through his own hand by accident, but it was enough to bowl him over backwards.

Allura disappeared out the door.

o.o.o.o.o

She took a deep breath before she opened the door, glad that she was wearing her dress instead of her uniform.

“Stop that,” she said, brushing into the training room without preamble.

“Allura!” Lance yelped, scrambling backwards across the floor on all fours. She waited until he’d stopped before speaking again.

“What you’re doing here… are you trying to build up the quintessence and _then_ release it?”

Lance nodded slowly, jerkily.

“You need to stop building it up first. Let only the smallest trickle through to the ends of your fingers,” she instructed, coming closer and taking a seat on the floor next to him. She took his hand in hers and spread the fingers wide so she could press it back against the ground. “Now, try again. No build-up. Just reach, pull, and spread.”

Lance closed his eyes again, and Allura watched as the slightest bit of pale blue light made its way down his arm. And then paused, building just a little in his palm.

The blast was smaller this time.

Lance buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“Try again,” Allura ordered, thinking back to the readings she’d been doing in an attempt to understand her _own_ powers. “Remember, do not let it build. Simply extend the power.”

“I _was_.”

“You hesitate right before you release the quintessence,” Allura informed him, watching for the flinch as he admitted she was right, if only to himself. “Every time, there is a pause. The longer you wait before you release, the more it will build. There is no shame in going slow or starting small, but do not let it _build_ unless you plan to attack.”

Lance looked up at her, and the expression in those eyes was unreadable.

“Lance, this was a common problem when Altea still had fledgling quintessence users,” she finally said.

“What, really?” His body language changed, becoming just a bit more open. Good. He’d listen, then.

“Especially for snipers, whether they used a bow or a gun. You are accustomed to holding tension for a period of time before you release it as your primary form of attack, so that is how you instinctively work with quintessence. It is good for those who only plan to use quintessence for an attack, but if you plan to use this power in other ways…”

Lance closed his eyes again. “Right. Just a trickle. Okay.”

The blast was tiny this time.

“Better. Again.”

Allura knew he was actually trying. That wasn’t to say that he slacked off during regular training, of course, far from it. But there was a jittery, intense edge to him now. He did not want to be a danger to his friends, and so he focused.

“Try it like this,” Allura suggested after several mixed successes. “Attempt to imagine it as a flow of energy circulating through your body, like blood. Not simply going down, but coming back up. Then you just siphon away power from the stream as you need it.”

Lance frowned, but nodded. “Okay, so like… okay. I’m making anime references in my head to have this make sense, so I’m weebing out, but I think I get it.”

“Lance?” Pidge’s voice came over the speaker. “Are you using the chakra system from Naruto as a basis?”

“Shut up, Pidge.”

“That’s a yes.”

“Shut _up_.” Lance smiled, face turned away from the enclosed console that overlooked the training room. “Okay, I’m gonna… do you mind if I meditate a bit first? With Blue?”

“Do you need to leave the room?”

“No.”

“Then if you think it might help, go ahead. I’ll stay here.” And practice, actually. If Lance was going to be meditating for quintessence training, then so would Allura.

Lance took up a meditation pose that Allura had seen reflected in the other paladins, something that was apparently fairly popular among humans. Her own pose was a little different, but it would achieving the same goal of aiding her in becoming comfortable enough to focus on her own quintessence.

They sat, entirely still, for several doboshes. They could hear only each other’s breathing and the occasional shift of cloth. The others were in the soundproof control area above, so Allura couldn’t hear them either.

She could feel the temperature dropping steadily, a slow decline through the degrees. It didn’t bother her, since her dress aided her in retaining homeostasis, but the exposed skin of her face and hands could feel the crisp chill.

When Allura opened her eyes, she could see her own breath.

“Lance?” She hazarded.

“I think…” Lance said, a little breathy. “I think I’m good?”

“Ready to try again?” Allura asked, keeping her voice soft and her tone gentle.

Lance opened his eyes, and there was a paleness to his irises, almost a glow. If Allura focused, she could feel quintessence pulsing sluggishly in a path through his body.

“Smoother,” she said, running a hand down his arm. “You can do this, but your quintessence is still lurching as it passes through you.”

Lance frowned, but focused again, and the circulation path cleared a little, smoothed out.

“Try again,” Allura ordered, drawing back a few paces.

Lance bit his lip and put a hand to the floor, closing his eyes again.

A sheen of frost spread out his hand, in an imperfect circle, a little splotchy.

But it was there.

“Congratulations. You did it.”

Lance’s eyes flew open in surprise, and he stared down at his hand and the floor beneath it. The frost had pulsed outward in varying directions and speeds for a few feet, and surrounded Lance on all sides.

“Holy shit,” he said, lacking words.

“Language,” Pidge’s voice came mockingly over the speakers.

“I just did magic! Let me be freaked out!” Lance called back. “So, uh… do you think I could refine it or whatever?”

“You will be joining me in my quintessence practice sessions,” Allura answered. “So yes, you _will_ refine it. It’s a very useful ability, if you can learn to use it properly.”

“Now, would you like to see what will happen if you try to… I believe the phrase is ‘let loose’?” Allura gestured around the room. “The training room can take it, I assure you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“…can _you_ take it, though?” Lance looked around nervously. “I mean, it’s probably going to be really underwhelming, but there’s always a chance that you _won’t_ be fine, right?”

“Alteans are a sturdy species, Lance. I’ll be fine. I’ll stand by the door if it would make you feel comfortable, though, just in case.” Allura doubted Lance’s newfound abilities would be _quite_ so powerful, especially if Blue was supplying the power and could cut off the quintessence flow if things started heading for overkill.

Lance nodded, getting to his feet and nervously wringing his hands. “Um…”

“What is it, Lance?” Allura did her best to keep any annoyance out of her tone. The situation was stressful enough for her paladins already. She didn’t need to add to it.

“There’s something that I think might help me loosen up before I try, but… it’s kind of dumb?” He scratched the back of his head, looking away.

“Lance, if it’s going to help, then I promise it’s not dumb.”

“Yeah, but some of the others might laugh, and—never mind. I’ll be fine. I just… music? Might help me get in the right mindset?”

“I don’t see how that’s worthy of mockery.”

“Lance?” Pidge’s voice came over the speakers. “Do you want me to play ‘Let It Go’ for you?”

Lance ducked his head, a blush covering his cheeks. “It could help, yeah.”

“I have it on my laptop, so you’re in luck.” Pidge typed audibly for a few seconds. “And I might have laughed, but we wouldn’t be mocking you, dude, just… you know. Disney. We’d stop teasing if it bothered you.”

Lance shrugged, still looking uncomfortable. Allura didn’t quite know what was going on, but she put a hand on Lance’s shoulder and squeezed just a little. Human bones were fragile, after all. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Allura,” he said, staring at her hand like it was an unknown creature for a moment. He smiled brightly at her, then. “And hey, after this, we can do a movie night! If Pidge has Frozen on her computer, then we can watch that, and you’ll understand all the jokes we’re making.”

Allura nodded. “Alright. Try not to exhaust yourself. Quintessence can have strange effects on the body.”

“I’ll try.”

Allura headed for the door, and leaned against it with her arms crossed as she waited for Pidge to finish up with whatever she was doing.

“I’ll probably end up dancing a little,” Lance said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Just to… get in the mood. Or something.”

Allura gave him a go-ahead gesture. Anything that helped.

An instrumental started playing over the speakers, the ‘piano’ that she’d heard in so many other songs. Lance closed his eyes and started… not walking, not quite, but moving to the slow music, circling tightly in the middle of the room.

“ _The snow glows white on the mountain tonight,”_

The woman’s voice was a little… not _hoarse_ , not quite, but it was a little rough in some way. Still appealing, though, and very skilled.

Lance was mouthing along to the words, his movements getting less tense as the song went on. Allura had never quite connected to music in the way that people like Coran did, but she could tell that Lance was finding the music helpful. As the music picked up, so did his movements, until he suddenly stopped, posing, and then started gesturing after just a few seconds.

“ _Let it go! Let it go! Can’t hold it back anymore!”_

Ah. Lance finally got his flurries. She saw him open his eyes as he managed them with a gesture that involved rubbing his thumb along his fingers, almost like he was snapping his fingers, but… smoother.

The song gained more energy, and so did Lance, like the instrumentals and voice were fueling him just as much as the Blue Lion was.

He spun in a circle at one point, foot sweeping along the ground, and it left a burst of frost and snow behind it along the floor.

Lance grinned at Allura, and started repeating the motion. He flung his arms out, apparently just pouring out quintessence for more flurries.

“ _Here I stand, and here I’ll stay! Let the storm rage on!”_

Lance took a solid stance in the middle of the room, hands clawing up through the air as his quintessence did… _something_. Allura wasn’t sure how to describe it, other than ‘suddenly racing.’ This was reflected externally, as his eyes started glowing at a level visible even from the distance, and the temperature plummeted even further.

A set of large icicles grew upwards out of the ground in a circle around him, and he slowly turned on the spot, biting his lip. Allura watched as the icicles bent sideways, curving around Lance in a cage-like structure until they joined together at the top. Slightly flatter and more geometric shapes sprouted between them to form something like walls.

Lance shot Allura another grin and then slipped out between the gap he’d left.

She gave him a thumbs-up, a gesture she’d picked up from the humans, and then shooed him along to do more.

Lance seemed happy to do just that, closing his eyes and spreading his arms wide, spinning and just… _pouring out quintessence_. By Altea, that couldn’t be healthy.

“ _Let it go! Let it go! And I’ll rise like the break of dawn!_ ”

Lance’s eyes were still closed.

Lance couldn’t see what he was doing.

Oh quiznak.

Allura brought her hands up to shield her face as snow and hail continued to pour from Lance’s outstretched arms, swirling around the room and whipping up a wind that was actually quite strong.

She hoped the song was going to end soon, because Lance was making actual snowdrifts in his movements.

…She’d told him to go all-out. To let loose. Oh well. Time to deal with the consequences.

“ _Here I stand, in the light of day!”_

The largest blast of quintessence yet, and Allura was nearly blinded by the resulting fountain of snow.

_“Let the storm rage on!”_

The wind whipped by, all the snow from so far lifting into the air.

“ _The cold never bothered me anyway._ ”

A musical trill to signal the end of the song, and everything fell.

Lance stayed where he was, heaving breaths with a giant smile on his face, holding a pose.

His eyes were still closed.

“Ahem.”

Lance opened his eyes, looking right at Allura.

His smile dropped with his arms.

“Holy shit.”

Allura raised an eyebrow, then let her own folded arms fall, along with all the snow piled on them. She started brushing the rest off of her shoulders, head, and other body parts.

“I… I didn’t expect this,” Lance said, a little shaky. His shoulders crept up towards his ears, folding in on himself like he was scared that he’d damage something if he took up too much space. “I did this. I did this? This?”

“You did,” Allura said, giving up on the snow removal. She folded her hands over one another in front of her, once more the very picture of a lady. “I think we’ll find a nice, cold planet that won’t have its environment harmed by the sudden drop in temperatures, next time.”

“Next time?”

“You do need to train more,” she told him. She let a smile cross her face. “I can’t let you off that easily, now can I?”

Lance actually laughed, some of the tension leaving his body. “So you’re not mad about all the snow?”

“I did tell you to let loose. You did this under my orders, Lance.” Allura shook her head. “We’ll figure out a way to drain the room later.”

“Okay. Okay.” Lance took a deep breath. “Okay. I have cool ice powers. I can be the Elsa. Or the Bobby Drake, maybe? Or the Hitsugaya. The Haku. I can do the thing. That’s cool.”

“Lance, I don’t know who any of these people are.”

“Fictional characters.”

“I assumed, yes.” Allura sighed, stretching as she headed for the door. She was curious to see just how low the temperature had dropped in terms of actual degrees; her fingers were numb by now. “Let’s go see the others and find out if our resident scientists got any interesting information from that experiment.”

“Okay. Um, Allura? Would a planet that’s already mostly ice and water be a decent place to practice?” He scratched the back of his head. “Because if it would, then we could probably go back to the mermaids, right?”

Allura considered that. “We’ll see.”

o.o.o.o.o

Keith stared as Lance lay on the ice in his paladin armor, talking to an alien mermaid that was actually responding to his flirtations. She was popping up at the edge of the bay-like curve they’d chipped into the ice so that they could stand on ice that was thick enough to support them while still being accessible to the locals. Just her head and a fraction of her torso were out of the water, her arms folded on the ice ledge so she could rest her head like Lance was. Lance himself was kicking his legs back and forth in the air behind him, like this was a gossip session instead of a negotiation for training space. Granted, the castle and lions had to stay up on one of the massive glaciers instead of on the thinner sheet of ice on the water, so the situation wasn’t optimal, but a friendly planet that wouldn’t have any issue with Lance practicing seemed like a pretty good idea.

“Queen Luxia!” Hunk called, jogging over to one of the others, who did look a little fancier than the mermaid Lance was talking to. “Nice to see you again.”

“And you, paladins.” The queen smiled. “I have to say, I’m surprised to see you here again. Has Lance really gotten new abilities?”

“Yeah, and they’re _amazing_. Seriously, if he’d had those the first time, the whole Baku thing would have been over even faster.”

“Only if I didn’t accidentally freeze the entire ocean while panicking first,” Lance shouted over. He turned back to the mermaid girl he was talking to and explained, “We don’t know much about how these powers work, yet, so who knows how that all would have gone.”

“I’d love to watch, if you don’t mind,” the mermaid girl said. “It’s been a while since you left, and I’m sure we’d all like to see what our people’s savior has been up to.”

Lance’s face did some interesting acrobatics that landed on a goofy, confused smile and bright red cheeks. “Yeah? Not just you and the queen?”

“I’m sure Blumfump and Swirn would be interested. I’ll go get them!” Mermaid girl disappeared back into the water, and Lance pushed himself up to sit on his knees.

“So… savior?” Keith asked, coming closer. “I don’t think I heard that story.”

“Oh, uh, nah, that was just as much Hunk as it was me.” Lance rubbed at the back of his neck, though Keith wasn’t sure if he could actually feel anything through the suit. “There was this giant alien sea serpent thing that was brainwashing the merfolk into feeding themselves to it? So we both got brainwashed for a bit, and then we killed the monster, and everything was chill.”

Keith bumped up an eyebrow, because that didn’t sound like the whole story, or even most of it. Lance hadn’t even bragged about making a cool shot or anything. But he could always ask Hunk, or maybe one of the merpeople, for more details later. “Okay, then. Good job for saving them.”

“Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw, Keith, did you just compliment me?”

Keith blinked once. Twice. “…what was that about a chainsaw?”

“It’s a quote? From Heathers? We’ll have to watch it sometime, it’s a classic.” Lance shook his head. “Just consider it, uh… an expression of surprise. I guess?”

“I think anyone would be surprised to hear that, Lance.”

“…see, I can’t tell if you’re making a joke or not.” Lance rubbed at his chin. “I think you are, but…”

“I was trying,” Keith admitted.

“Maybe work on your delivery,” Lance said, patting him on the shoulder. “Oh, hey, you know what I just realized?”

“What?”

“I could swim here without my armor now!” Lance clapped his hand excitedly, jumping on the spot. “Oh my god, I won’t be bothered by the water temperature!”

“But… how will you breathe?” Keith felt like this was a pretty important concern.

“They have the bubble coral thing,” Lance said, waving the question off. “So I could totally breathe without my helmet, and _I_ am a _very_ good swimmer.”

“You wouldn’t be able to go too deep, though,” Pidge said from behind them, startling them both. She ignored Lance's cursing as she continued. “The pressure would crush your lungs, probably.”

“Thanks for the reminder, shorty,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. “But… actually, do you think I could like… take off the suit anyway? I don’t want to accidentally rip open the gloves or something.”

“If you’re going to strip, please have some spare clothes on hand first.” Pidge made a face. “I don’t want to see you naked.”

“I’m… I’m wearing underwear, Pidge. I’m not just commando under here.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Oh, come on! Boxers totally hide more than a speedo would! That’s gotta count for something?”

 “I don’t want to imagine you in a speedo either, Lance.”

Lance turned imploring eyes in Keith’s direction. “Help me.”

Keith shrugged. “I don’t see why you’d need Pidge’s permission at all.”

“That is… a good point.” Lance nodded to himself. “Right! Time to strip!”

“Allura’s gonna be mad,” Pidge said, sidling up to Keith. “Right?”

Keith shrugged again. “I don’t know. Probably.”

The mermaid girl that had been talking to Lance reappeared just as Lance finished taking off the paladin armor undersuit.

“Plaxum! Hey, do you have one of those bubble corals?”

“I’m afraid not,” Plaxum said, shaking her head. “The queen might?”

“Eh, I’ll ask later. Can’t go too deep anyway.” And then he took a running leap at the water, diving in like the water was a second home.

It probably was, going by his stories.

Lance resurfaced and shook his head, grinning at the nearby merfolk. Plaxum darted in and placed a kiss on his cheek, and then backed away, laughing. After a moment, Lance laughed, too. “I didn’t do anything to deserve that one!”

“You came back, though!”

Keith felt both his eyebrows rise up, and angled his body a little towards Pidge as he asked, “Did you know about that?”

“You mean, did Lance brag about getting a kiss from a pretty mermaid as thanks for helping out her planet while you were being emo in the healing pods waiting for Shiro?” Pidge asked. “Because the answer is yes.”

“Is she treating it as an inside joke, or actually interested, or…?”

Pidge made a face. “How would I know?”

“You’re less agile in the water like this,” one of the newer merfolk said.

“Yeah, well, I don’t have a jetpack as part of my natural body, so… there’s your answer, Blumfump.” Lance swam lazily in a circle, and looked pretty agile to Keith’s eyes, but he figured the mermaids had higher standards, given that they were, well, _mermaids_.

“The water is much colder near you,” the last member of the trio said, drifting closer and farther away repeatedly. “Is this part of your new powerset?”

“Yeah, Swirn, it’s… it’s been a weird day.” Lance stopped swimming in circles and tread water for a moment. “I guess I’m just… making everything around me cold now? When I woke up this morning, my room was totally frosted over, no joke.”

“Wow,” Plaxum said, hand to her mouth. “Are you thinking that you might be able to exhaust yourself too much here to do that again?”

“Nah, I’m just here to practice on a planet where making things cold isn’t going to do much damage. Which reminds me, I thought you guys opened up the thermal vents again. Why’s there still ice?”

“Oh, there’s always been ice on the water,” Swirn said. “It’s just that it didn’t cover _everything_ before. We’re actually a couple vodameters away from the village right now, not counting vertical movement.”

“Just wondering. After all that ‘all are safe and warm’ stuff, I was kind of hoping you guys wouldn’t have trouble going back to your old lives. Temperature was the big thing to worry about, other than food.” Lance disappeared under the water for a moment, and then popped back up so he could slick his hair back while it was still soaked. “Man, it’s been a while since I could swim properly.”

“You still can’t,” Blumfump told him.

“Wow. Thanks. Totally feeling the love here,” Lance drawled, kicking away slowly.

Several footsteps crunched across the ice behind Keith and Pidge, stopping just short of them. “What is Lance doing?”

Allura sounded tired. Unfortunate, that.

“He wanted to go for a swim,” Keith said, turning to see that the princess was back in her armor. “He realized he didn’t need the armor since the cold doesn’t bother him, so he’s… having fun, I guess?”

“Lance!” Allura shouted, hands on her hips. “Time for training!”

Lance pouted, but climbed out of the water anyway. “Can I have music again?”

“We don’t have any way of playing it.”

Lance grinned. “Actually…”

Allura’s face gained a guarded look. “What?”

“Blue wanted to _help_ ,” Lance said, looking giddily smug. “So I made sure she was outside of the castle and had a copy of the soundtrack uploaded to her system.”

Keith was the one that actually prompted a continuation. “And?”

“Aaaaaand the _last_ time we were here, I found out that Blue has a sonic cannon on her back. One that she doesn’t mind using to, safely, play music for me.” Lance spread his arms wide. “Isn’t that cool?”

“Just get to training,” Allura sighed, shaking her head and turning to head for Hunk. “Pidge, Keith, come with me so that we don’t get caught in the crossfire if this ends up bigger than expected.”

Lance grinned before they’d even managed to move, slipping his still-wet hands up into the gaps of their helmets.

His hands were fucking _freezing_.

“You asshole!” Keith yelped, stumbling away. “Don’t _do_ that!”

“Lance, what the hell?” Pidge demanded.

Lance wiggled his fingers in a goodbye, smiling. “See you in a few minutes!”

Keith wondered if this was what life was just going to be like going from here.

…he was going to need more Altean sweaters.

**Author's Note:**

> In the episode, the mermaids measure Lance's head in "aquameters." Continuing the theme of "a word for water + meter" for the measuring system, I'm using vodameter, since I'm Serbian-American and the Serbian word for water is... voda. Which you could have guessed based on what I already said.
> 
> If I continued this, it would probably be about Shiro's reaction to Lance having ice powers, since by the time they find him, Lance's powers would be much more refined, and he could have a proper Let It Go moment.
> 
> ~~...if I _actually_ made this a long-form fic, it would actually probably be Lancelot and filled with endless references to random musicals and Lance letting himself be a political hostage in an attempt to seduce Lotor to the side of the good guys. Not with sex, but with Earth media and logic. Also compliments. Lotor might end up a bit head-over-heels and eager-to-please but entirely unsure of what to DO other than keep trying to figure out what the fuck Lance is saying when he makes a reference and exchanging beauty regimes and accidentally becoming anti-imperialism because Lance is much more manipulative than he seems, OKAY, HAGGAR? YOU'RE NOT MY REAL MOM ANYWAY.~~
> 
> ~~Lance literally starts off the political hostage situation saying "I'm going to manipulate you into becoming one of the good guys, Lotor." They really should have seen it coming.~~
> 
> ~~The reason Lance would agree, of course, is that he actually has a weapon on hand no matter what now. And if they're sneaky enough about it, then Lance is at any given time in a perfect position to assassinate Lotor with an ice bullet if it becomes clear that the "convince Lotor to dismantle his father's empire from the top down in an orderly fashion that isn't going to kill off as many people as a direct war would" plan is failing more than expected. They'd prefer not to take the assassination route unless necessary, because Zarkon's coma has already proven that the whole "cut off the head" solution isn't going to work; it would be helpful for the heir and most influential person in the Galra Empire to be willing to help them dismantle things from the inside, instead of cutting him down and then just having to deal with whoever replaces HIM.~~
> 
> ~~...PLEASE don't comment just to ask me to continue or to comment on Lotor. I've had similar experiences with previous fics, and I'm just going to head that off here and say that I'd really prefer commentary on the actual fic, not about the hypothetical continuation.~~
> 
> With the release of Season 3, I've decided not to continue this series beyond the second installment. The canon portrayal of Lotor clashes too much with the planned plotline, so I'm scrapping it.


End file.
